


another kind of child actress

by shcherbatskayas



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Eye Contact, Gambler/Yakuza AU, Gen, Homelessness, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, No Dialogue, Playing With POV, shcherbatskayas content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 08:35:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13407459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shcherbatskayas/pseuds/shcherbatskayas
Summary: Natsumi knows Peko before she officially meets her.





	another kind of child actress

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thewildwilds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewildwilds/gifts).



> happy birthday to thewildwilds's AMAZING gambler/yakuza au!! this might not make much sense if you're not familiar with that, so go to her tumblr (also thewildwilds) and check it out!! it's the best, and i wrote this quick thing for it because I Love Natsumi Kuzuryuu With My Whole Heart. it's 2018 and i'm still love her. anyways, i hope you enjoy!! <33

Natsumi officially meets Peko on a relatively warm October day after tailing her like a lost puppy dog for two days to try and figure out what the hell she was up to with her brother. And she admits to putting up her stake, eventually, to the surprise of absolutely no one, but to the surprise of absolutely everyone, neither one of them decapitate each other. In fact, the meeting is quite civil.

No one knows that she met Peko once before that. Not even Peko knows, and Fuyuhiko was there, but he doesn’t remember. It’s fair, though. He had been fighting a nasty cold and a not-quite-healed concussion, curtsy of their father. 

They had been young. Ten. Eleven, maybe. Skinny runaways sleeping in parks and internet cafes too close to their old home for comfort, but they were too poor for train tickets and winter was too brutal that year to risk walking to the next city over. In those days, poker games were solicited at night with people not much richer than them, and the bulk of their money came from picking pockets. They were a sad sight, and most people avoided looking directly at them, like they were the winter sun that hung thousands of meters above them, like they were half-invisible ghosts, like looking directly at homeless kids would render them blind. Natsumi despised them for it. 

Fuyuhiko was awake. Barely awake, but awake. Natsumi had fought the cold and beaten it, but his immune system was still fending it off. They sat in an alley at god-knows what time at night, Natsumi pouring over a map of Kobe to try and figure out which parks they hadn’t slept in yet and how far they would have to go to get to a new one. Staying in one place for too long was dangerous, and even then, Natsumi was always on the move, even if the area she could move in was ridiculously small. While she did that, Fuyuhiko fussed with a deck of cards. He still couldn’t focus right, and trying to force him to had resulted in a skirmish earlier that day, and so Natsumi didn’t try. 

A car stopped outside of their alley. No, not a car. A limo. A real, proper limo. Black and shiny like new leather shoes, and it all but sparkled in the neon lights of this shitty part of town. The door was opened by the driver, and from it exited a certifiable fleet of bodyguards, a man in a very expensive suit, and a girl. 

The girl was Natsumi’s age with silver hair tied in two neat braids. She was pale and tall and walked very straight, but she was still a kid. Still a kid beneath that act. Natsumi’s act was different, but she knew an act when she saw one. She knew the child actresses that girls like them were, the kind that didn’t get to be on billboards. Natsumi had looked at a million of them, and not one of them had looked back. 

Natsumi pulled down on her baseball cap, and then pulled it back up. Fuyuhiko glanced over at the limo once, scoffed, and turned back to his cards. The scoff hid an envious sadness that Natsumi picked up on without effort, an envious sadness that she couldn’t comfort because it felt like it was eating her alive. She felt it all the time these days, when she looked at people who had schools and homes and families beyond a single concussed twin. She felt it all the time, and it never subsided, but she got better at pretending to not feel it. That was something, at least. 

“Yakuza.” Fuyuhiko muttered to her. “I’d bet my life that they’re yakuza.”

“You say that ‘bout everybody.” Natsumi countered, earning herself a smack on the arm. She responded by hitting him over the head with her map.

The possibly-yakuza spoke not too far from their alley, discussing something about collecting rent from some people. Natsumi half-listened as she crossed off parks with her stolen glitter pen. It wasn’t too interesting, but what was interesting was that the girl was looking at them. Fuyuhiko was too invested in his cards and his cold to notice, but Natsumi noticed. Natsumi noticed, put her map down, and looked back. 

Eye contact. It had been weeks since anyone had held eye contact with her. Even Fuyuhiko had a habit of looking at her nose instead. It was just too hard to look directly at her, and when Natsumi saw herself reflected in windows and puddles, she understood why. She was mean-eyed and thin with cheekbones like the knife she carried in her bookbag, and there was always dirt somewhere on her and her hair was greasy as all hell beneath the hat and the ponytail, and she moved quickly and without fear, like a snake on the verge of death. Nobody ever wanted to look in her eyes, wanted to look through the dark circles that surrounded them, but this girl did. She saw the horrors of life, and she did not flinch from it. 

Natsumi wanted to talk to her, but the bodyguards kept close, kept her from being able to properly approach. She would’ve glared at them, but she was too busy looking at the girl she would later know as Peko Pekoyama. She couldn’t look away from her, not when she was finally getting looked at. She was finally being seen, and it was such a good feeling that Natsumi could've cried from the joy of it. All she saw through the blur of her own thoughts were bright red eyes and that pale moon face and a sort of loneliness that collected itself around her brows. Natsumi understood that look, and Peko understood what she was seeing, too, and the feeling of being so thoroughly and quickly understood was better than any loose cigarette Natsumi had been offered by someone as desperate and pathetic as she was.

Eventually, the group started walking away, but Peko turned her head and looked back at her. She looked back at her. Natsumi raised her hand up to wave, and Peko didn’t wave, but she nodded. Recognition. Finally, some form of _recognition_. It was just a nod, but it was _recognition_. Then she rounded the corner and was gone. 

And years later, when Natsumi saw her again, she remembered. She remembered cherry-red eyes that did not look away, and she hoped that they had not changed. 

The main reason Peko left their first meeting with her head still attached to her shoulders, despite all of the trouble she was causing her, was because they hadn’t. And Natsumi wasn’t shocked that Peko didn’t recognize her. She looks different nowadays. She still wears her baseball hat and puts her hair in a ponytail, but now it’s bouncy and clean and her face is still sharp, but not starving-animal sharp, not sharp like her cheekbones are trying to break through her skin. She still walks quickly, but now she walks with her shoulders set back and her chin royalty high. There are no bags under her eyes, no signs of sleepless nights. 

The meanness is still there, though. The meanness that covers up the hope that there are people who can look, who can and will look. The meanness is there, and the hope is there, and it leaves Peko with the feeling that she has seen Natsumi before, but she cannot place her. She cannot place her, and she doesn’t even know how to try, so she doesn’t. 

But she makes a point of holding eye contact with Natsumi afterwards. Peko doesn’t know why, but it’s the only thing that seems to work with her. And it’s a stupid thing to hope for, but she hopes that one day, Natsumi will tell her why. But for now she is tight-lipped and knife-tongued and cruel all over, and Peko accepts it as part of the deal. She accepts it for now and waits for it to fade away, because she is an actress in her own way and she knows that no act can hold up forever, not even Natsumi’s. 

Still, Peko can’t help but think that it’s admirable that she tries. It’s admirable, but she wonders how much choice Natsumi ever had in the matter. She wonders if she even had a choice in it at all.


End file.
